Addicted to producing web content since early 2001, I've blogged across several platforms and have written professionally for varied publications, including True/Slant, where I had a regular music column. Whether my blogs or columns were mostly about politics, current events or pop culture, the constant thread that ran through them was music. Even when writing about controversial or divisive topics, a simple piece where music is the focus always produced a commonality that could bring people together.
My first memory is of dancing to the Moody Blues' "Go Now" when I was three years old. Since then, almost every memory I have is tied to a song. I hope to bring that personal relationship with music to these pages, to take you along on my journey where I sift through genres and styles, through albums and song and introduce you to new sounds and find ways to make you rethink what you've already heard.

Best New Albums of 2012

I know it’s only November. There’s still a month’s worth of Tuesday’s left. But if I’m to be perfectly honest, there’s no way any album released in December will be able to catch my attention enough to make this list. As it is, I listened to most of these albums in the latter half of 2012. In fact, I discovered one of them – Trash Talk – only a week ago (and become obsessed with it enough to know it will be one of my most listened to albums in 2013).

So my year end list is ready a month early and I thought I’d share it with you so you can quickly add all of the albums to your holiday gift list because you know I only have the most discerning taste and would never steer you wrong.

The albums are in no particular order. While they all stand out, there’s not one that stands above the other mostly because I’m fickle and my favorites change from day to day.

2012 was a fabulous year for new music. In recent years, I’ve lamented making “best of” lists because I could never find enough albums I loved to make a list of more than five. And part of that is my fault. I get stuck on older albums and don’t let them go, which means sometimes I don’t make room for the new. The first half of 2012 found me obsessed with albums that came out in 2010 (Bad Books/Self Titled) and 2007 (The National’s Boxer). When I finally got around to testing the new music waters I was both astounded and delighted to see how much I’d been missing that I ended up spending the past few months cramming for my Best of 2012 list because I knew there was going to be so much to choose from.

Absent are some of the usual suspects that have made the year end lists of the big guns in the music criticism world; I tried hard to like the offerings from Miguel, Frank Ocean, Grizzly Bear, The xx and Dirty Projectors, to name a few, but while none of them were awful (ok, I thought the Dirty Projectors was just this side of awful), they did not grab me the way the albums on my list did.

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Passion Pit was my favorite for the year. Beach House, Amanda Palmer and Japandroids made my top 10 so I’m glad you like those. Have you heard the latests from The Walkmen, Lost in the Trees, Plan B, Hot Chip, Lana Del Rey, Shearwater, First Aid Kit, Sigur Ros, Andrew Bird, Of Monsters and Men, Sun Kil Moon, etc? I really liked Frank Ocean and Grizzly Bear. Maybe give those a few more spins?

The Frank Ocean is really growing on me. I just can not get into Lana Del Ray. Andrew Bird, Hot Chip, the Walkmen, I’ve heard and enjoyed. If there were a couple more months left in the year, Of Monsters and Men might have made my list.